Intel Says Spectre & Meltdown Exploits Extend To Newer Chips As Well

A couple of weeks ago, security exploits known as Spectre and Meltdown were revealed and it is a particularly nasty exploit. This is due to the fact that the exploits affect a variety of chips from a variety of makers, covering a bunch of devices ranging from computers to mobile phones.

Naturally Intel was affected by this, although it was initially thought it only affected the company’s older processors. However in a recent blog post by Intel VP Navin Shenoy, they have revealed the both the Spectre and Meltdown exploits extend to their newer chips as well, which includes Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake, and Kaby Lake.

According to Intel’s blog post, “We have reproduced these issues internally and are making progress toward identifying the root cause. In parallel, we will be providing beta microcode to vendors for validation by next week.” Shenoy also notes that these patches will have an impact on performance, at least based on their data center tests.

For example in one test which simulated a stock exchange interaction and online transaction, it showed a slow down of 4%, while various server workloads showed slow downs of up to 25%. This seems to be in line with an earlier report in which iPhone users found that they were experiencing a hit in performance after applying the iOS 11.2.2 patch that was meant to address the Spectre exploit.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Computers
Tags: Hack, Intel, Security